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Grinding to get items to keep grinding features a picture of a guy on a treadmill. And I used the gym as a way to quit World of Warcraft. How fitting.

I think some of might be writing for the sake of stirring the pot, but he has some valid points. Obviously not everyone is playing Modern Warfare of Dutyfield this joke is overdone already. But the mass of cash money votes on this stuff so it will keep getting green lit and coming around next year. I haven't played a single Call of Duty game. I actually chuckled at the "As a reminder, here are the two games, back to back:" bit.

I guess my response would be to... put money where it's best deserved, thus encouraging those games to gain ground in the world of games. Be a responsible game-buyer. You have no idea how valuable your transactions are.

Sure is disturbing, and despite the thick sarcasm which is about as subtle as a wet fish to the face, it does have some valid points. Unfortunately (and I bet I'm going to be torn limb from limb, but I'm nothing if not honest) I'm starting to see a trend in some of the "indie" games which seems to say that a sub-standard shadow-puppet platformer (for example) can be excused because it has artistic value or "a message", or that because it's an "indie" dev you can excuse things like having very little gameplay. I think this started popping up with the release of Audiosurf, and a bunch of other casual games followed in its wake. Same with avant-garde platformers.

Or maybe I'm just being jaded. Either way few people are making the kind of games I like, and no sir I don't like it.

David Wong's gaming articles are usually more spot on than a lot of games' 'journalism' from the publisher advertising dollar dependent gaming sites. He's like that fat guy from Destructoid, if said fat guy was cogent, logical or funny or was able to write or do research. (I refuse to use his name so that that blowhard fuck-wit doesn't gain anymore page counts.)Since there is no publishers ' hand feeding him, DW is not afraid to bite. His reports from last year's E3 were the most honest I've seen(His reports on the Kinetic and Move demonstrations are classics). Sad that some of the most honest games' reporting comes from a humor site whose main meme involves dick jokes.

Soldant, I felt the same about a lot of indie music when I was still involved in the music racket. Much intentionally avant-garde stuff struck me as a way to cover for a lack of basic musical competence. Same went for lo-fi. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

I would say I agree with everything in the article. I may be overreacting but I can't get that preliminary "gaming 2011" chart out of my head though. I mean, is aiming down a weapon's sights a bad thing? That probably wasn't the point of the chart, it's just that... that's how you aim guns.

If I understand dead island correctly, you won't be looking down a gun sight very often, because guns are too hard to come by and have very limited ammo. You'll be required to use more primitive or thoughtful means most of the time. Or maybe that's all a farce and it'll just play like everything else. I agree about MMORPG turning too grinding oriented. I quit LOTRO because of the insane amount of grinding required

Interestingly, I watched several Extra Credits episodes the other day - which was a horrible experience, don't do it - and there was one that basically stated the complete opposite of that article says.

This article, written by the same guy, is also quite strong despite the obligatory dick'n'boobs jokes. Nothing new, perhaps, but it's an issue that shouldn't be ignored, and a surprisingly clear-eyed piece.

Loved the FPS collage. That being said, there does seem to be a wee bit of a difference between the Battlefield games and COD games. By that I mean the MP gameplay experience is substantially different in character. Definitely makes a good point though. I think a more telling image would be screenshots of gun barrels, dead enemies, and a floating number denoting the number of "points" "earned". That really is a COD thing that's migrated across all sorts of games.

Personally I think iron sights are irrelevant. Ghost Recon (1) never had iron sights but felt v. realistic - the reticule was a transparent overlay shaped like the gun sights of a gun and was always "active". Then we had games like COD4 and Ghost Recon Advanced W. and everything like that and suddenly to me, it just felt less fun. It's like the iron sights just got into the way, serving as an extra layer of obfuscation; a road bump that jarred the immediacy of combat. Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield also felt v. nice to play. Minus the serene weapon switching speeds the instant target acquisition-instant hit nature of these non-iron sight games really pushes for a more immediate and visceral experience. Counter-strike didn't have any iron sights either. It had recoil and bullet spread (instead?). What I don't understand is how the whole iron sights thing just became so damn proliferative. What exactly does it add to the gunshooting experience, minus a small dose of realism? And it's really not like the real thing either, because 99% of the "fun" is successfully holding up the gun and aligning the sights, something that the in-game character does automatically with the press of a button.

The stupid thing is that when you look through a red dot sight you have both eyes open and all you really see is a dot imposed on what you are looking at and the ghosted image of the rifle (since only one eye is looking through it and its not focussed on it). In games a red dot sight is used like some kind of a scope with no zoom - totally pointless.

Also the barrel of the gun always obscures half the screen too. Very annoying.

What exactly does it add to the gunshooting experience, minus a small dose of realism?

A small dose of realism goes a long way.

If you want gameplay terms, it allows the weapon to have a "set-up" time(the time it takes you to enter ADS) after which it becomes much more accurate. Giving you a choice of firing "from the hip" - quickly but inaccurately, or aiming down the sights, which is much more effective but also slower.

It's patent nonsense that "we don't know what games are". The fact that he can't be bothered to read Huizinga and Caillois doesn't mean what they've said (particularly Caillois) has any less merit. We've known what games are basically since before video games even happened. More to the point, the things that he derides for "not being games" fit rather neatly into that established classification of games.

If you want gameplay terms, it allows the weapon to have a "set-up" time(the time it takes you to enter ADS) after which it becomes much more accurate. Giving you a choice of firing "from the hip" - quickly but inaccurately, or aiming down the sights, which is much more effective but also slower.

The "realistic" part of aiming through sights = aligning the sites. This requires good hand eye coordination/muscle memory. Yet games only simulate the picture of sights being put up. What exactly is the point? Kind of missing the forest for the trees here.

In gameplay terms, all it does is act as an impediment, imo. In a game with sights, shooting from the hip is basically useless (good luck hitting anything without sights in COD). So then you do pull up the sights (right click) and suddenly you hit with 100% accuracy. Huh? In pre-iron sight games, players were challenged with managing recoil, gun spread and things like that. True that the recoil values are hardly realistic...but it was fun. Now it's right click.

The Russians and the Chinese are, in any case, taught to hit targets up to 10m away with a semi without aiming through sites anyway. Can't even do that in games.

Well, it makes me glad I'm a PC gamer. Despite his dig at PC DRM (somewhat fair, but Steam is hardly onerous), all of the points are fundamentally problems with consoles.

PC games will always be there, because people will make the games they want if they aren't available to buy. I can live without AAA games, I've had enough AAA FPS's that I play once and then forget about already and Amnesia shows you don't need AAA production values to provide a fantastic experience. Without the console gatekeeper we will always have interesting and innovative games to play and I couldn't give a flying fuck if console gamers are stuck paying $100 a month to player Modern Warfare 5.

STALKER made good use of iron sights I thought. It wasn't just an aesthetic thing either. I guess I didn't mean to say earlier that all games MUST use iron sights. I just meant to say that there are games that have relatively meaningful use of them.

The "realistic" part of aiming through sights = aligning the sites. This requires good hand eye coordination/muscle memory. Yet games only simulate the picture of sights being put up. What exactly is the point? Kind of missing the forest for the trees here.

What a bizarre argument. Would you also say that sprinting is useless, because games only stimulate going faster and in reality it requires strong legs and good cardio?

In gameplay terms, all it does is act as an impediment, imo. In a game with sights, shooting from the hip is basically useless (good luck hitting anything without sights in COD). So then you do pull up the sights (right click) and suddenly you hit with 100% accuracy. Huh?

In Call of Duty, yes. That's why Call of Duty makes for a crappy multiplayer game. How accurate weapons are in and out of ADS is developer's decision to make.

Now, I wouldn't normally post anything from Cracked in hopes of any sort of serious discussion, but I thought the guy actually had some good points.

Cracked usually has some excellent points. Despite being marketed towards fratbros and written in that kind of style, the writers are intelligent and unbiased.

I wish half the news sites out there were as smart as Cracked.

Anyway, the two most disturbing trends are definitely the "register and authenticate everything" trend (especially Steamworks) and the "parcelling off bits of the game to sell separately as the laziest DLC strategy ever" one.

His point about there being no real vision of the future is bollocks, though - there never has been.

Originally Posted by hamster

good luck hitting anything without sights in COD

I'm guessing you don't play CoD at all, considering Steady Aim + SMG fired from the hip has been a staple of the series since CoD4. Hell, the last CoD's only blatantly broken weapon is broken because it's so accurate when fired from the hip.

And CoD does not make for crappy multiplayer because of ADS. It makes for crappy multiplayer because Infinity Ward and Treyarch are incapable of producing a balanced game. Otherwise, it makes for excellent multiplayer.